Time-Use Patterns and Sustainable Urban Form: A Case Study to Explore Potential Links

• Main Authors: Edeltraud Haselsteiner, Barbara Smetschka, Alexander Remesch, Veronika Gaube
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2015-06-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: social ecology; sustainable urban planning; social sustainability; time use; quality of life; energy use
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/8022

Linking time use of the inhabitants of a city with their energy consumption and urban form is an approach which allows integration of the social dimension into research on sustainable urban development. While much has been written about the planning of cities and its implications for human social life, the question of the relationship between time-use patterns and urban form remains underexplored. This is all the more astonishing as time-use statistics offer a unique tool for analysing socio-economic changes regarding family and household structures, gender relations, working hours, recreational behaviour and consumption patterns. Furthermore, spatial planning plays a significant role in establishing time structures. With this paper we aim to explore the possibility of using the time-use data of an urban population to find links between individual time-use patterns and urban form. We describe a case study in Vienna where we addressed time use and mobility of citizens in a participatory approach to jointly develop an integrated socio-ecological model of urban time-use patterns and energy consumption.